The previous gate was a barb wire gate. It was both loose and then tight in spots and hard to open and close. The fence was just five strands of loose barb wire. Most of the wooden fence posts were rotted and were only standing because the wires were holding them up, and the wooden fence posts were keeping the wires apart. Steel posts were added to patch the fence and nothing was on an eight foot interval for posts. In other words the fence needed to be rebuilt.
Last year I bought a 16 foot metal gate at an auction.
The old gate wasn't in a position I considered the best so I moved the gate's location. This part of the pasture can be rocky and I ended up digging through rock and gravel for three of the four railroad tie fence posts. I had to use a metal bar to break up the ground to get the rocks and gravel loose. Normally I can dig a hole for a railroad tie in 15 minutes but these holes took forty-five minutes to an hour of hard work.
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| Rocks dug out to put the railroad tie posts in the ground. |
Before I had to rotate the cattle back into the north pasture and stop the fence work, I also rebuilt the fence from the gate to an area closer to the river (where I had rebuilt that section of fence over ten years ago). I replaced all of the 5 and half foot metal posts with six foot posts. Only a couple of wood posts were reusable. Surprisingly the only original post that was on the new 8 foot post interval was one of the two good wood posts.
46 fence posts for 368 feet. Re-stringing or adding new strands of barb wire took an hour and a half per strand. The rebuilt fence has 8 strands of barb wire.
I still had the fence from the gate to Calvin's yard left to rebuild. I thought once I rotated the cattle out of the north pasture after five days I would finish the fence rebuild. But then all the cattle and hay crises started to happen the end of June and all of July.
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| Old fence yet to be rebuilt |
When I cut Calvin's field in July I noticed that where the rebuilt fence was located, the grass in Calvin's field grew all the way to the fence. In the old five strand fence yet to be rebuilt the cattle put their head through and ate a little of the grass on Calvin's side.
Finally(!) on September 20 through the morning of the 23rd I finished the fence rebuild from the gate to where Calvin's yard starts. 38 fence posts. I replaced all these fence posts.
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| Old fence to be rebuilt |
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| New rebuilt fence |
Two of the old metal fence posts were 8 feet long. They looked like they were 5 and 1/2 feet long as they were pounded into the ground deeper to be the same height as the 5 and 1/2 foot posts. One of the 8 foot posts had a dead tree root over the post's triangle stabilizer. That was a challenge to remove so I could get the post out. There was no tree nearby so that post most have been in the ground for many years, maybe even back to 1941 when the ranch was created.
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| 8 foot metal post hole |
Where Calvin's pasture ends and yard start is not a corner post for me. Even though the original five strands of barb wire continues on, you can see how the three new strands of wire tilted the new post when I stretched the wires tight. And that was after I tried to not stretch the wires too tight to keep this from happening.
Now that the fence rebuild is finally done... another thing crossed off my to-do list before Winter.
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